Gagliardi retires as SJU football coach

Nov. 19, 2012

As the questions start to die down following his press conference announcement to retire, St. John's University Head Football Coach John Gagliardi shares a laugh with his wife, Peggy, today at SJU in Collegeville. / Kimm Anderson, kanderson@stcloudtimes.com

COLLEGEVILLE — The winningest coach in college football has decided to close the book on a long and storied career.

John Gagliardi, who recorded 489 career victories in his 64 seasons as a head coach at the collegiate level – the last 60 at St. John’s – confirmed this morning that the regular-season finale against Bethel on Nov. 10 was indeed his final game.

“There are a lot of reasons for it,” Gagliardi said this morning. “But the main thing is that if I was going to do this, I wanted to get on with it so they could start searching for a replacement right away and that person could get going on the job.

“That just made this seem like the right time.”

A press conference announcing the decision was held this afternoon in the J-Club Room at Warner Palaestra.

“It’s been a great ride,” Gagliardi told the assembled media. “I’ve got a lot to be thankful for.

“When I turn on TV and see all the great stadiums (in college football) and see 10 different games on 10 different channels, it just amazes me that I’ve been even a small part of this whole business. I’m just grateful that I’ve been able to make a living and raise a family as part of a game.”

Gagliardi will remain on staff at the school until his current contract expires on June 30,, 2013. But school officials said a national search for a replacement will begin in a matter of days.

“It’s a relief,” said Gagliardi, who has been asked repeatedly about his future plans most of this past season.

“But there are a lot of mixed emotions. There are a lot of things I’ll miss. Part of you would always like to carry on the battle. But now that there are no more battles there, that will be a relief too.”

It will be the school’s first search for a new head football coach since Gagliardi was hired to replace legendary Johnnies standout and NFL Hall of Famer John “Blood” McNally in early 1953.

“It’s a happy day in that John Gagliardi coached here for 60 years and he’s been able to do things his way,” St. John’s athletic director Tom Stock said. “St. John’s has been so fortunate that the winningest coach in the history of the game has chosen to spend 60 years here and he leaves on his own terms. We’re just so grateful for all he’s done for this school.”

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Stock said a 10-person committee will conduct the search for a new coach. About half of that committee is already in place. He said his hope is that the process will move quickly.

“Our goal is to have it completed before Christmas,” said Stock, who termed in a 30-day process at today’s press conference. “We’re going to try and move as expeditiously as possible.

“The good thing is that John’s position has been so public. I’m already getting e-mails from people saying they’ve suggested to this person or that person to apply. Great candidates will come forward. We know we’ll have great candidates internally and from the outside. John has had a lot of former players go into coaching and there may be candidates from that pool as well.”

Though Stock said that whoever is hired for the job will have big shoes to fill.

“I’m willing to bet that St. John’s won’t go 60 years before we search for our next coach,” Stock said. “The next coach won’t be able to win almost 80 percent of his games over a 60-year period. He won’t have the NCAA record for most wins and games coached.

“John has certainly been an aberration and we’ve been so blessed to have him.”

Already today, defensive assistant coach Gary Fasching, the team’s recruiting coordinator, confirmed he intends to apply for the position. Gagliardi’s son Jim, the team’s offensive coordinator, said he was inclined not to apply.

And Mike Grant, a former player at St. John’s and the longtime coach at Eden Prairie High School, said he does have interest in the position, though his focus this week is on helping his team prepare to meet Lakeview North in the Class 6A state championship game Friday.

“If they’re interested in me, I’m interested in talking to them,” Grant said this afternoon. “It would be an honor to be considered for that. But there has to be interest both ways.”

Since taking over in Collegeville at the start of the 1953 season, Gagliardi, who turned 86 on Nov. 1, has led the Johnnies to four national titles. St. John’s won NAIA championships in 1963 and ’65 and NCAA Division III crowns in 1976 and 2003.

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His last national title in 2003 capped a season in which St. John’s finished 14-0 and Gagliardi surpassed former Grambling coach Eddie Robinson atop college football’s all-time victories list by recording win No. 409 with a 29-26 victory over Bethel in the season’s ninth game.

The Johnnies then went on to knock off perennial Division III titan Mount Union 24-6 in the national championship game, ending the Purple Raiders’ then-record 55-game winning streak.

Besides the four national titles, Gagliardi’s teams have won or shared 27 MIAC titles – the last of which came in 2009, which was also the last of the Johnnies’ 23 postseason trips in his tenure.

St. John’s then finished 7-3 in 2010, 6-4 last season and 5-5 this season – the first .500 finish at the school since 1986. The Johnnies lost four straight games for the first time since 1930, before rebounding to win three in a row, then fell 27-22 to Bethel in the final game.

“There’s part of you that would like to stick around and try to rectify the situation,” Gagliardi said. “I had several former players e-mail me to say we’d been through this before. We’ve had down years and we always managed to come back and be OK. So the challenge was there. But then you think, maybe it’s just time.”

Still, Gagliardi said he has no regrets about remaining on the job as long as he has.

“When we won the national championship in 2003, people were asking me if I thought that would be a good time to retire,” Gagliardi said. “I thought maybe it would be nice to sort of ride off into the sunset. But then I thought ‘What would I do there?’ Was I going to find guys in the park to go play checkers with? So I don’t regret staying.

“I might regret this,” he added with a smile. “Who knows how I’ll feel in a month, or next season? You’re asking me to look into the future and I don’t know what I’ll be thinking then. But all my life, I’ve always managed to tell myself that whatever decision I’ve made is the best thing that could have happened.”

Gagliardi’s retirement brings to a close the longest head coaching career in college football history, and also one of its most unorthodox.

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His legendary list of no’s – as well as his success – has drawn countless amounts of national media attention over the years. His teams do not tackle in practice, there are no whistles or tackling dummies, and his players do not refer to him as coach – rather addressing him simply as John.

There have been no team captains – that honor has been bestowed upon all the seniors on the roster each season – and his teams eschewed the traditional calisthenics so common to the sport, instead employing such routines as the ‘beautiful day drill,’ in which players drop to their backs and gaze up at the sky.

“It didn’t come as a surprise,” said freshman wide receiver Josh Bungum, who led the team in receiving this past season. “But when someone has been coaching at a place for 60 years, you just kind of expect he will be back again next season. So in that sense, it was kind of a shocking thing to hear.

“But having the chance to play for the winningest coach in college football history is an experience I’ll be able to carry with me the rest of my life.”

Bobby Fischer, a senior cornerback this past season, said the news wasn’t unexpected, but still took some time to digest.

“It still hasn’t set in for me,” Fischer said. “He’s such a legendary man and he’s meant so much to so many people. It’s hard to believe that he won’t be coaching here forever.”

Gagliardi began his coaching career at the age of 16 in 1943 when he convinced school officials at Holy Trinity High School in his native Trinidad, Colo., to let him take over as player-coach when the Tigers’ previous head coach – Dutch Clark – was called into military service in World War II.

He spent four seasons there, advancing to the Colorado parochial school state title game in 1946, before taking over for two seasons at St. Mary’s High School in Colorado Springs – where he attended Colorado College and graduated in the spring of 1949.

He was then hired as the head coach at Carroll College in Helena, Mont., prior to the 1949 season . His team’s there compiled a record of 24-6-1 and won three conference titles before he was hired at St. John’s following the 1952 campaign.

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“I’ve never been through this before so I don’t know if it will be good or bad,” Gagliardi said of the transition to retired life. “All I know is that I’ve seen a lot of good people retire every year. There have been a lot of people here at St. John’s who’ve retired and the place has seemed to go on without them.”

For years, Gagliardi and his family – which includes wife Peg, daughters Nancy and Gina and sons John and Jim – resided just a short walk away from the Johnnies’ home football field in a house in Flynntown, a small group of homes located on the edge of the St. John’s campus.

But Gagliardi and his wife gave up that home in the summer of 2011 and moved full-time to their residence on nearby Big Watab Lake.

Gagliardi not only coached his sons John and Jim at St. John’s, but this season also had three of his grandsons on the roster, though two were prevented from playing due to injury.

“I’ve had a lot of good memories,” Gagliardi said. “Of course, not everything was always great. Every loss was bitter. You always think of the could’ves and would’ves. But I’ve tried hard not to dwell on those things. I’ve always looked ahead to the future.

“Now there won’t be a future game to look forward to. So that will be a different feeling.”

Today’s news was important enough to warrant a statement from White House press secretary Jay Carney.

“On behalf of the President, I want to congratulate John Gagliardi on his retirement as the winningest coach in college football history,” the statement read.

“Over the course of 64 seasons – 60 of them at his beloved Saint John’s – Gagliardi’s 486 wins put him among the greatest to ever coach the game. With a career that began as a 16-year-old after his high school coach was called to serve in World War II, Gagliardi was never the most conventional figure. He instructed his players to call him “John” instead of “Coach,” and in turn, called each of his more than 100 players by their first names. His refusal to allow tackling in practice and his insistence that players make class before practice also became the stuff of legend. But the unusual methods worked – earning St. John’s four national championships. And even as his time on the gridiron comes to a close, Gagliardi’s genuine concern for players as scholar athletes and human beings will ensure that his influence will be felt for years to come.”

One of Gagliardi’s former players – Denis McDonough – is the deputy national security advisor in the Obama Administration.